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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On November 05 2013 03:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2013 03:34 KwarK wrote:On November 05 2013 03:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 02:48 KwarK wrote:On November 05 2013 02:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 02:17 WhiteDog wrote:On November 05 2013 00:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 04 2013 21:57 KwarK wrote:On November 04 2013 12:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 04 2013 11:20 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
NICE (the name for the death panel) are out to make sure that my health needs are met, I'm not being missold anything because there is no sale involved, the money is taken and spent meeting my actuarial needs. If I'm dumb and think "I don't need checkups, I feel fine" and opt for a policy where checkups are extra and I save money by not having any then I'm gonna end up fucked. The insurance company was happy to offer me that option because it's offering a service and that was a service I wanted, the issue is that I didn't know that hypothetically the biggest potentially devastating threat to my health didn't have immediately obvious symptoms because I'm not an expert on health. The insurance company is not looking to make everyone as healthy as possible, it's looking to sell you as much health as you want to buy and you are not equipped to make a judgement there. It's a fundamentally different business model, insurance is trying to give you something you want and uses the calculations to come up with a costing model for what you want. If you want stuff you don't need they'll still happily sell it to you, if you need stuff you don't want then they'll leave it out. The public system uses the same calculations to come up with what you need and gives you that and as much as Introvert wishes to claim otherwise doctors actually know more about medicine than the American public. Well doctors know about needs, but they don't know a lot about costs. That's one of the main problems in the US - the system is excessively doctor focused. As for your insurance comments, you don't have it entirely correct. Insurance companies, the employers that pay for insurance, and insurance customers all have an incentive to provide a reasonably correct amount of coverage. No one, even the insurance company, is completely agnostic towards a person's health. More sick people mean higher claims. You can certainly have problems where people are myopic and choose less healthcare now only to require more later. But universal coverage doesn't really change that. People still make bad healthcare decisions. I still see it all the time. I don't see why you'd need to know what the hypothetical biggest threat to your health is. I'd like you to address that specifically. Edit: On November 04 2013 11:28 DoubleReed wrote:
[quote]
Yea, I know. I think VSL is used more for safety and security measures, where they want to say "we saved X lives and therefore X dollars." EPA (clumsily) uses it. Using it for healthcare would seem rational. NICE isn't just doctors, a lot of what it does is statistics. It's not just "does the treatment work?", it's "how well does it work for how many people?", "how cost effective is it?", "how viable is implementation?" and so forth. It's interdisciplinary. As long as the premium was accurately assessed to make them a profit on average an insurance company could not give a fuck if you got sick. There's no real need to drive down costs if you're passing them straight on based upon their choices. The issue with not knowing what health stuff is likely to happen to you is that you're meant to make a decision regarding which payment plans and coverage are best suited to your needs and you don't really know what your needs are. You don't know if you want your expenses capped in the case of a single catastrophic accident or if you'd do better with a plan that provided regular prescriptions for a chronic condition for free because you don't know what's likely to happen to you. A co-pay could not be an issue or it could be crippling and unless you're an expert on your own health and statistics you can't make a meaningful comparison. You're making financial planning with only half the information whereas they have both sides. Yeah, I know NICE does that. What's your point anyway? I don't see how NICE is relevant to discussing insurance. You can't on one hand complain that insurance companies are motivated out of greed to deny coverage to "fuck you" and on the other hand argue that once a premium has been paid they don't give a fuck if you get sick. It's one or the other. You're arguing two mutually exclusive things. When you buy insurance you're buying for all that. You want to cap total expenses and receive discounts on recurring expenses. The only way you can get screwed is if you don't buy enough insurance and you get something really expensive happen to you. Other than that it's easy. You just look at your own financial situation and see how much tolerance you have for unexpected expenses and pick a plan to cover that. You don't need to know the statistics, just how much cost you can bear if something bad happens. He is basically saying that you need more informations than what you are actually given to make the most optimal decision regarding health care, and that those informations will not be given to individuals by the private insurances... In my opinion it's not really a question because those informations are not even understandable by a big part of the population, and even if they do understands, people are not rational when it comes to risk - the risk aversion model have been proved empirically wrong over and over. People will not chose their healthcare plan based on their risks, but rather by "getting their fingers wet" : they will minimize the costs as long as they will be able to. If the complaint is that an individual buyer of insurance may pick a plan that is sub-optimal to his or her individual needs, than the same complaint must be levied against national plans. National plans don't seek to be optimal to the individual but rather optimal to the group, something they are very successful in achieving. Individual insurance plans don't seek to be optimal to either, they're selling what people want, not what they need. Optimal to the group is still sup-optimal. Some will over buy coverage and others will under buy. This criticism doesn't bother me in the slightest as optimal for the group is what I'm aiming for. A public health system will take tax from some people knowing it's likely to spend more than it gets and tax from others knowing it's likely to get more than it spends. A private insurance institution only does the latter, statistically everyone getting private health insurance is a loser, now obviously some people get really sick and therefore win, but assuming that they described their health accurately every single customer ought to be a loser. But you're not addressing my criticism, a private system can allow an individual to buy insufficient, or surplus in useless areas, coverage to actually meet his healthcare needs because he doesn't know what his needs are. How are you figuring that everyone ought to be a loser with private insurance? Private insurance can allow an individual to buy insufficient, or surplus in useless areas. I already addressed this by pointing out that public systems do exactly the same thing... which you dismiss as irrelevant because optimal for the group (or is it optimal for the average?) is what you're after. So is your criticism relevant or not? If it's relevant than you must apply the same criticism to public plans. If it's not, drop it.
Let's use basic economy to figure this : with private insurance, the "level" of insurance will be optimally set, in theory, at the point where demand and offer meet. This solution is, under the assumption that the insurance market is perfect, optimal in pareto sense : this is the best solution possible.
But, health is not a common good, as it has indirect effect on the society as a whole, what economists call externalities. Using the state as a mean of coordination instead of the market will replace market optimum with a a less optimal solution in term of pure market questions (ressource allocation, considering the hypothesis that the insurance market is perfect, which is a ridiculous assumption) but at the same time it will give the state the opportunity to take into consideration the positive externalities of having a good health on the society.
It is not a question of individuals, some will not be assured enough sure, in theory it is even less optimal than market allocation but overall the society is supposed to gain a lot because the social security controlled by the state is not searching for individual optimality, but rather a global goal.
The two situations are completly different, the goals and the results are too : in one situation, the goal is the optimality of ressource allocation, in the other the goal is having the best health possible and maximizing its effect on the society. It's a good idea to take economic language to understands the role of the government and the role of the market : the two are both means for the coordination of the action of agents, but their goals are different as the market will always maximize the utility and/or profit (depending on the situation).
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On November 05 2013 05:00 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2013 03:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 03:34 KwarK wrote:On November 05 2013 03:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 02:48 KwarK wrote:On November 05 2013 02:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 02:17 WhiteDog wrote:On November 05 2013 00:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 04 2013 21:57 KwarK wrote:On November 04 2013 12:36 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
Well doctors know about needs, but they don't know a lot about costs. That's one of the main problems in the US - the system is excessively doctor focused.
As for your insurance comments, you don't have it entirely correct. Insurance companies, the employers that pay for insurance, and insurance customers all have an incentive to provide a reasonably correct amount of coverage. No one, even the insurance company, is completely agnostic towards a person's health. More sick people mean higher claims.
You can certainly have problems where people are myopic and choose less healthcare now only to require more later. But universal coverage doesn't really change that. People still make bad healthcare decisions. I still see it all the time.
I don't see why you'd need to know what the hypothetical biggest threat to your health is. I'd like you to address that specifically.
Edit:[quote]
EPA (clumsily) uses it. Using it for healthcare would seem rational. NICE isn't just doctors, a lot of what it does is statistics. It's not just "does the treatment work?", it's "how well does it work for how many people?", "how cost effective is it?", "how viable is implementation?" and so forth. It's interdisciplinary. As long as the premium was accurately assessed to make them a profit on average an insurance company could not give a fuck if you got sick. There's no real need to drive down costs if you're passing them straight on based upon their choices. The issue with not knowing what health stuff is likely to happen to you is that you're meant to make a decision regarding which payment plans and coverage are best suited to your needs and you don't really know what your needs are. You don't know if you want your expenses capped in the case of a single catastrophic accident or if you'd do better with a plan that provided regular prescriptions for a chronic condition for free because you don't know what's likely to happen to you. A co-pay could not be an issue or it could be crippling and unless you're an expert on your own health and statistics you can't make a meaningful comparison. You're making financial planning with only half the information whereas they have both sides. Yeah, I know NICE does that. What's your point anyway? I don't see how NICE is relevant to discussing insurance. You can't on one hand complain that insurance companies are motivated out of greed to deny coverage to "fuck you" and on the other hand argue that once a premium has been paid they don't give a fuck if you get sick. It's one or the other. You're arguing two mutually exclusive things. When you buy insurance you're buying for all that. You want to cap total expenses and receive discounts on recurring expenses. The only way you can get screwed is if you don't buy enough insurance and you get something really expensive happen to you. Other than that it's easy. You just look at your own financial situation and see how much tolerance you have for unexpected expenses and pick a plan to cover that. You don't need to know the statistics, just how much cost you can bear if something bad happens. He is basically saying that you need more informations than what you are actually given to make the most optimal decision regarding health care, and that those informations will not be given to individuals by the private insurances... In my opinion it's not really a question because those informations are not even understandable by a big part of the population, and even if they do understands, people are not rational when it comes to risk - the risk aversion model have been proved empirically wrong over and over. People will not chose their healthcare plan based on their risks, but rather by "getting their fingers wet" : they will minimize the costs as long as they will be able to. If the complaint is that an individual buyer of insurance may pick a plan that is sub-optimal to his or her individual needs, than the same complaint must be levied against national plans. National plans don't seek to be optimal to the individual but rather optimal to the group, something they are very successful in achieving. Individual insurance plans don't seek to be optimal to either, they're selling what people want, not what they need. Optimal to the group is still sup-optimal. Some will over buy coverage and others will under buy. This criticism doesn't bother me in the slightest as optimal for the group is what I'm aiming for. A public health system will take tax from some people knowing it's likely to spend more than it gets and tax from others knowing it's likely to get more than it spends. A private insurance institution only does the latter, statistically everyone getting private health insurance is a loser, now obviously some people get really sick and therefore win, but assuming that they described their health accurately every single customer ought to be a loser. But you're not addressing my criticism, a private system can allow an individual to buy insufficient, or surplus in useless areas, coverage to actually meet his healthcare needs because he doesn't know what his needs are. How are you figuring that everyone ought to be a loser with private insurance? Private insurance can allow an individual to buy insufficient, or surplus in useless areas. I already addressed this by pointing out that public systems do exactly the same thing... which you dismiss as irrelevant because optimal for the group (or is it optimal for the average?) is what you're after. So is your criticism relevant or not? If it's relevant than you must apply the same criticism to public plans. If it's not, drop it. Let's use basic economy to figure this : with private insurance, the "level" of insurance will be optimally set, in theory, at the point where demand and offer meet. This solution is, under the assumption that the insurance market is perfect, optimal in pareto sense : this is the best solution possible. But, health is not a common good, as it has indirect effect on the society as a whole, what economists call externalities. Using the state as a mean of coordination instead of the market will replace market optimum with a a less optimal solution in term of pure market questions (ressource allocation, considering the hypothesis that the insurance market is perfect, which is a ridiculous assumption) but at the same time it will give the state the opportunity to take into consideration the positive externalities of having a good health on the society. It is not a question of individuals, some will not be assured enough sure, in theory it is even less optimal than market allocation but overall the society is supposed to gain a lot because the social security controlled by the state is not searching for individual optimality, but rather a global goal. The two situations are completly different, the goals and the results are too : in one situation, the goal is the optimality of ressource allocation, in the other the goal is having the best health possible and maximizing its effect on the society. It's a good idea to take economic language to understands the role of the government and the role of the market : the two are both means for the coordination of the action of agents, but their goals are different as the market will always maximize the utility and/or profit (depending on the situation).
The discussion has nothing to do with the outcome of a free market in insurance vs a public system. Kwark has the position that buying insurance is a pipe dream because people won't buy the optimal (whatever that is) amount of insurance for themselves. I don't think that's true, and a counter point to that is that public systems are not optimal to the individual either.
As for externalities, that's partially what regulators are for. They can (and do) mandate what can go into an insurance plan. Government systems can also work in parallel to insurance schemes. Again, I'm not advocating a pure free market in insurance here, just that insurance isn't a thing that's impossible to use well.
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House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) affirmed on Monday morning that he would oppose a law that would prohibit discrimination against gay and lesbian employees in the workplace, citing the possibility that it would put a financial burden on businesses.
"The Speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs," Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said in a statement.
The remark from Steel is a tough blow for supporters of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
A vote on the legislation is coming Monday in the Senate, and there is growing optimism that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will be able to bypass a filibuster attempt. Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) announced on Monday that he would back ENDA, making him the 60th member to announce support for it.
But even if the bill were to make it through that chamber, it would require passage in the House. And with Boehner coming out in opposition, it seems unlikely that it would even get a vote.
Source
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On November 05 2013 05:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2013 05:00 WhiteDog wrote:On November 05 2013 03:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 03:34 KwarK wrote:On November 05 2013 03:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 02:48 KwarK wrote:On November 05 2013 02:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 02:17 WhiteDog wrote:On November 05 2013 00:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 04 2013 21:57 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
NICE isn't just doctors, a lot of what it does is statistics. It's not just "does the treatment work?", it's "how well does it work for how many people?", "how cost effective is it?", "how viable is implementation?" and so forth. It's interdisciplinary.
As long as the premium was accurately assessed to make them a profit on average an insurance company could not give a fuck if you got sick. There's no real need to drive down costs if you're passing them straight on based upon their choices.
The issue with not knowing what health stuff is likely to happen to you is that you're meant to make a decision regarding which payment plans and coverage are best suited to your needs and you don't really know what your needs are. You don't know if you want your expenses capped in the case of a single catastrophic accident or if you'd do better with a plan that provided regular prescriptions for a chronic condition for free because you don't know what's likely to happen to you. A co-pay could not be an issue or it could be crippling and unless you're an expert on your own health and statistics you can't make a meaningful comparison. You're making financial planning with only half the information whereas they have both sides. Yeah, I know NICE does that. What's your point anyway? I don't see how NICE is relevant to discussing insurance. You can't on one hand complain that insurance companies are motivated out of greed to deny coverage to "fuck you" and on the other hand argue that once a premium has been paid they don't give a fuck if you get sick. It's one or the other. You're arguing two mutually exclusive things. When you buy insurance you're buying for all that. You want to cap total expenses and receive discounts on recurring expenses. The only way you can get screwed is if you don't buy enough insurance and you get something really expensive happen to you. Other than that it's easy. You just look at your own financial situation and see how much tolerance you have for unexpected expenses and pick a plan to cover that. You don't need to know the statistics, just how much cost you can bear if something bad happens. He is basically saying that you need more informations than what you are actually given to make the most optimal decision regarding health care, and that those informations will not be given to individuals by the private insurances... In my opinion it's not really a question because those informations are not even understandable by a big part of the population, and even if they do understands, people are not rational when it comes to risk - the risk aversion model have been proved empirically wrong over and over. People will not chose their healthcare plan based on their risks, but rather by "getting their fingers wet" : they will minimize the costs as long as they will be able to. If the complaint is that an individual buyer of insurance may pick a plan that is sub-optimal to his or her individual needs, than the same complaint must be levied against national plans. National plans don't seek to be optimal to the individual but rather optimal to the group, something they are very successful in achieving. Individual insurance plans don't seek to be optimal to either, they're selling what people want, not what they need. Optimal to the group is still sup-optimal. Some will over buy coverage and others will under buy. This criticism doesn't bother me in the slightest as optimal for the group is what I'm aiming for. A public health system will take tax from some people knowing it's likely to spend more than it gets and tax from others knowing it's likely to get more than it spends. A private insurance institution only does the latter, statistically everyone getting private health insurance is a loser, now obviously some people get really sick and therefore win, but assuming that they described their health accurately every single customer ought to be a loser. But you're not addressing my criticism, a private system can allow an individual to buy insufficient, or surplus in useless areas, coverage to actually meet his healthcare needs because he doesn't know what his needs are. How are you figuring that everyone ought to be a loser with private insurance? Private insurance can allow an individual to buy insufficient, or surplus in useless areas. I already addressed this by pointing out that public systems do exactly the same thing... which you dismiss as irrelevant because optimal for the group (or is it optimal for the average?) is what you're after. So is your criticism relevant or not? If it's relevant than you must apply the same criticism to public plans. If it's not, drop it. Let's use basic economy to figure this : with private insurance, the "level" of insurance will be optimally set, in theory, at the point where demand and offer meet. This solution is, under the assumption that the insurance market is perfect, optimal in pareto sense : this is the best solution possible. But, health is not a common good, as it has indirect effect on the society as a whole, what economists call externalities. Using the state as a mean of coordination instead of the market will replace market optimum with a a less optimal solution in term of pure market questions (ressource allocation, considering the hypothesis that the insurance market is perfect, which is a ridiculous assumption) but at the same time it will give the state the opportunity to take into consideration the positive externalities of having a good health on the society. It is not a question of individuals, some will not be assured enough sure, in theory it is even less optimal than market allocation but overall the society is supposed to gain a lot because the social security controlled by the state is not searching for individual optimality, but rather a global goal. The two situations are completly different, the goals and the results are too : in one situation, the goal is the optimality of ressource allocation, in the other the goal is having the best health possible and maximizing its effect on the society. It's a good idea to take economic language to understands the role of the government and the role of the market : the two are both means for the coordination of the action of agents, but their goals are different as the market will always maximize the utility and/or profit (depending on the situation). The discussion has nothing to do with the outcome of a free market in insurance vs a public system. Kwark has the position that buying insurance is a pipe dream because people won't buy the optimal (whatever that is) amount of insurance for themselves. I don't think that's true, and a counter point to that is that public systems are not optimal to the individual either. As for externalities, that's partially what regulators are for. They can (and do) mandate what can go into an insurance plan. Government systems can also work in parallel to insurance schemes. Again, I'm not advocating a pure free market in insurance here, just that insurance isn't a thing that's impossible to use well.
He was basically saying he preferred collective goal rather than individual goal, and you force him everytime to argue whether the government plan is optimal for individuals. He is saying that the market goals (the research of profit, which is the goal of private business) are not sufficent enough when we talk about health and again you tell him that private insurance are not less efficient (which is completly true in term of ressource allocation).
You are talking about ressource allocation when he is talking about health as a public good, that's why I used this exemple.
Personally I'd be for government social security for completly different arguments.
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On November 05 2013 05:40 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2013 05:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 05:00 WhiteDog wrote:On November 05 2013 03:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 03:34 KwarK wrote:On November 05 2013 03:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 02:48 KwarK wrote:On November 05 2013 02:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 02:17 WhiteDog wrote:On November 05 2013 00:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
Yeah, I know NICE does that. What's your point anyway? I don't see how NICE is relevant to discussing insurance.
You can't on one hand complain that insurance companies are motivated out of greed to deny coverage to "fuck you" and on the other hand argue that once a premium has been paid they don't give a fuck if you get sick. It's one or the other. You're arguing two mutually exclusive things.
When you buy insurance you're buying for all that. You want to cap total expenses and receive discounts on recurring expenses. The only way you can get screwed is if you don't buy enough insurance and you get something really expensive happen to you. Other than that it's easy. You just look at your own financial situation and see how much tolerance you have for unexpected expenses and pick a plan to cover that. You don't need to know the statistics, just how much cost you can bear if something bad happens. He is basically saying that you need more informations than what you are actually given to make the most optimal decision regarding health care, and that those informations will not be given to individuals by the private insurances... In my opinion it's not really a question because those informations are not even understandable by a big part of the population, and even if they do understands, people are not rational when it comes to risk - the risk aversion model have been proved empirically wrong over and over. People will not chose their healthcare plan based on their risks, but rather by "getting their fingers wet" : they will minimize the costs as long as they will be able to. If the complaint is that an individual buyer of insurance may pick a plan that is sub-optimal to his or her individual needs, than the same complaint must be levied against national plans. National plans don't seek to be optimal to the individual but rather optimal to the group, something they are very successful in achieving. Individual insurance plans don't seek to be optimal to either, they're selling what people want, not what they need. Optimal to the group is still sup-optimal. Some will over buy coverage and others will under buy. This criticism doesn't bother me in the slightest as optimal for the group is what I'm aiming for. A public health system will take tax from some people knowing it's likely to spend more than it gets and tax from others knowing it's likely to get more than it spends. A private insurance institution only does the latter, statistically everyone getting private health insurance is a loser, now obviously some people get really sick and therefore win, but assuming that they described their health accurately every single customer ought to be a loser. But you're not addressing my criticism, a private system can allow an individual to buy insufficient, or surplus in useless areas, coverage to actually meet his healthcare needs because he doesn't know what his needs are. How are you figuring that everyone ought to be a loser with private insurance? Private insurance can allow an individual to buy insufficient, or surplus in useless areas. I already addressed this by pointing out that public systems do exactly the same thing... which you dismiss as irrelevant because optimal for the group (or is it optimal for the average?) is what you're after. So is your criticism relevant or not? If it's relevant than you must apply the same criticism to public plans. If it's not, drop it. Let's use basic economy to figure this : with private insurance, the "level" of insurance will be optimally set, in theory, at the point where demand and offer meet. This solution is, under the assumption that the insurance market is perfect, optimal in pareto sense : this is the best solution possible. But, health is not a common good, as it has indirect effect on the society as a whole, what economists call externalities. Using the state as a mean of coordination instead of the market will replace market optimum with a a less optimal solution in term of pure market questions (ressource allocation, considering the hypothesis that the insurance market is perfect, which is a ridiculous assumption) but at the same time it will give the state the opportunity to take into consideration the positive externalities of having a good health on the society. It is not a question of individuals, some will not be assured enough sure, in theory it is even less optimal than market allocation but overall the society is supposed to gain a lot because the social security controlled by the state is not searching for individual optimality, but rather a global goal. The two situations are completly different, the goals and the results are too : in one situation, the goal is the optimality of ressource allocation, in the other the goal is having the best health possible and maximizing its effect on the society. It's a good idea to take economic language to understands the role of the government and the role of the market : the two are both means for the coordination of the action of agents, but their goals are different as the market will always maximize the utility and/or profit (depending on the situation). The discussion has nothing to do with the outcome of a free market in insurance vs a public system. Kwark has the position that buying insurance is a pipe dream because people won't buy the optimal (whatever that is) amount of insurance for themselves. I don't think that's true, and a counter point to that is that public systems are not optimal to the individual either. As for externalities, that's partially what regulators are for. They can (and do) mandate what can go into an insurance plan. Government systems can also work in parallel to insurance schemes. Again, I'm not advocating a pure free market in insurance here, just that insurance isn't a thing that's impossible to use well. He was basically saying he preferred collective goal rather than individual goal, and you force him everytime to argue whether the government plan is optimal for individuals. He is saying that the market goals (the research of profit, which is the goal of private business) are not sufficent enough when we talk about health and again you tell him that private insurance are not less efficient (which is completly true in term of ressource allocation). You are talking about ressource allocation when he is talking about health as a public good, that's why I used this exemple. Personally I'd be for government social security for completly different arguments.
Kwark implied optimal as in optimal to the individual, but has also said optimal to the group. I'm fine with either, but I'm not going to allow a double standard in the discussion.
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United States42780 Posts
On November 05 2013 05:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2013 05:40 WhiteDog wrote:On November 05 2013 05:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 05:00 WhiteDog wrote:On November 05 2013 03:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 03:34 KwarK wrote:On November 05 2013 03:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 02:48 KwarK wrote:On November 05 2013 02:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 02:17 WhiteDog wrote:
[quote]
He is basically saying that you need more informations than what you are actually given to make the most optimal decision regarding health care, and that those informations will not be given to individuals by the private insurances...
In my opinion it's not really a question because those informations are not even understandable by a big part of the population, and even if they do understands, people are not rational when it comes to risk - the risk aversion model have been proved empirically wrong over and over. People will not chose their healthcare plan based on their risks, but rather by "getting their fingers wet" : they will minimize the costs as long as they will be able to. If the complaint is that an individual buyer of insurance may pick a plan that is sub-optimal to his or her individual needs, than the same complaint must be levied against national plans. National plans don't seek to be optimal to the individual but rather optimal to the group, something they are very successful in achieving. Individual insurance plans don't seek to be optimal to either, they're selling what people want, not what they need. Optimal to the group is still sup-optimal. Some will over buy coverage and others will under buy. This criticism doesn't bother me in the slightest as optimal for the group is what I'm aiming for. A public health system will take tax from some people knowing it's likely to spend more than it gets and tax from others knowing it's likely to get more than it spends. A private insurance institution only does the latter, statistically everyone getting private health insurance is a loser, now obviously some people get really sick and therefore win, but assuming that they described their health accurately every single customer ought to be a loser. But you're not addressing my criticism, a private system can allow an individual to buy insufficient, or surplus in useless areas, coverage to actually meet his healthcare needs because he doesn't know what his needs are. How are you figuring that everyone ought to be a loser with private insurance? Private insurance can allow an individual to buy insufficient, or surplus in useless areas. I already addressed this by pointing out that public systems do exactly the same thing... which you dismiss as irrelevant because optimal for the group (or is it optimal for the average?) is what you're after. So is your criticism relevant or not? If it's relevant than you must apply the same criticism to public plans. If it's not, drop it. Let's use basic economy to figure this : with private insurance, the "level" of insurance will be optimally set, in theory, at the point where demand and offer meet. This solution is, under the assumption that the insurance market is perfect, optimal in pareto sense : this is the best solution possible. But, health is not a common good, as it has indirect effect on the society as a whole, what economists call externalities. Using the state as a mean of coordination instead of the market will replace market optimum with a a less optimal solution in term of pure market questions (ressource allocation, considering the hypothesis that the insurance market is perfect, which is a ridiculous assumption) but at the same time it will give the state the opportunity to take into consideration the positive externalities of having a good health on the society. It is not a question of individuals, some will not be assured enough sure, in theory it is even less optimal than market allocation but overall the society is supposed to gain a lot because the social security controlled by the state is not searching for individual optimality, but rather a global goal. The two situations are completly different, the goals and the results are too : in one situation, the goal is the optimality of ressource allocation, in the other the goal is having the best health possible and maximizing its effect on the society. It's a good idea to take economic language to understands the role of the government and the role of the market : the two are both means for the coordination of the action of agents, but their goals are different as the market will always maximize the utility and/or profit (depending on the situation). The discussion has nothing to do with the outcome of a free market in insurance vs a public system. Kwark has the position that buying insurance is a pipe dream because people won't buy the optimal (whatever that is) amount of insurance for themselves. I don't think that's true, and a counter point to that is that public systems are not optimal to the individual either. As for externalities, that's partially what regulators are for. They can (and do) mandate what can go into an insurance plan. Government systems can also work in parallel to insurance schemes. Again, I'm not advocating a pure free market in insurance here, just that insurance isn't a thing that's impossible to use well. He was basically saying he preferred collective goal rather than individual goal, and you force him everytime to argue whether the government plan is optimal for individuals. He is saying that the market goals (the research of profit, which is the goal of private business) are not sufficent enough when we talk about health and again you tell him that private insurance are not less efficient (which is completly true in term of ressource allocation). You are talking about ressource allocation when he is talking about health as a public good, that's why I used this exemple. Personally I'd be for government social security for completly different arguments. Kwark implied optimal as in optimal to the individual, but has also said optimal to the group. I'm fine with either, but I'm not going to allow a double standard in the discussion.
The clever people at NICE know what the biggest statistical threats to an individuals health are and how much money they have allocated for looking after each person. This means that the care you get will be for the stuff you are actually likely to need. This can work in direct ways in terms of checkups or in more general ways by actively encouraging my demographic to check for testicular cancer to catch it early because shit that is specific to your statistical health situation gets costed and if it proves cost effective, gets done. This is optimal in terms of treatment. The private system asks you what coverage you think you need and will guess your likely costs based upon that and sell you insurance but it is not so likely to be optimal in terms of treatment because you don't know what you need.
You keep jumping back and forth from optimal treatment to optimal treatment per $ for a given individual. I am saying that the public healthcare system does a better job of meeting the healthcare needs of an individual than the private one. It also spends money much more optimally across the group. However as with any system where people pay into it according to their means and withdraw from it according to their need some people are always going to be winners and some losers. The private one will more closely match your coverage to your premiums (well, not in America because your healthcare costs like 3x what ours does but in theory if a working private system actually existed then it would) but not your coverage to your needs.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
Hedge fund SAC Capital has agreed to plead guilty to criminal and civil charges related to insider trading and pay a historic $1.8 billion penalty. The proposed agreement revealed Monday would address charges that federal prosecutors filed in July, when U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara described the firm as a “veritable magnet for market cheaters” that “seeded itself in with corrupt traders.” SAC and its employees have been accused of insider trading involving pharmaceutical and tech stocks. The settlement is the largest ever financial penalty for insider trading, according to the plea agreement released Monday, and follows years of government investigations into the high profile fund and its founder Steven Cohen as part of a broader crackdown on insider trading. The government’s scrutiny of the firm and Cohen is likely to continue. Bharara said at a press conference Monday that a criminal investigation is ongoing, and that with respect to individuals at SAC or other firms “we will continue to pursue insider trading investigations and follow the facts wherever they lead.” While the guilty pleas absolve certain SAC corporate entities from further prosecution for insider trading between 1999 and December 2012, the government said the agreement provides no immunity to any person and wouldn’t restrict prosecutors from charging individuals with crimes. Bharara said that “individual guilt is not the whole of our mission.” “Sometimes blameworthy institutions need to be held accountable too,” he said. “No institution should rest easy in the belief that it is too big to jail. That is a moral hazard that a just society can ill-afford.” Judges must still approve the settlement. SAC will also exit the business of advising outside investors under the plea agreement, but the firm could continue on as a so-called “family office” that would invest Cohen’s fortune. The government has pursued criminal charges against SAC employees, but not Cohen, whom the SEC charged in July with failing to supervise employees accused of insider trading. Cohen has been fighting the civil charges. “We take responsibility for the handful of men who pleaded guilty and whose conduct gave rise to SAC’s liability,” said a spokesman for SAC, which is headquartered in Stamford, Conn. “The tiny fraction of wrongdoers does not represent the 3,000 honest men and women who have worked at the firm during the past 21 years.” In the plea agreement released Monday, the Justice Department said that the $1.8 billion penalty is broken down into a $900 million fine for criminal charges and $900 million for a related civil money laundering case. As part of the agreement, SAC will be able to credit an earlier $616 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission toward the $1.8 billion penalty. Bharara said the financial penalty will not fall on third party investors because no outside money will be used to pay it, minimizing market disruption. He added that neither SAC nor any individual paying the penalty will be permitted to claim a tax deduction or a tax benefit related to the fine. Cohen and his wife Alexandra in recent years have been active in donating to politicians, including to the PACs of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. A number of SAC employees have also donated thousands of dollars. Source: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/sac-capital-hedge-fund-deal-99317.html?hp=l2
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On November 05 2013 06:06 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2013 05:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 05:40 WhiteDog wrote:On November 05 2013 05:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 05:00 WhiteDog wrote:On November 05 2013 03:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 03:34 KwarK wrote:On November 05 2013 03:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 05 2013 02:48 KwarK wrote:On November 05 2013 02:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
If the complaint is that an individual buyer of insurance may pick a plan that is sub-optimal to his or her individual needs, than the same complaint must be levied against national plans. National plans don't seek to be optimal to the individual but rather optimal to the group, something they are very successful in achieving. Individual insurance plans don't seek to be optimal to either, they're selling what people want, not what they need. Optimal to the group is still sup-optimal. Some will over buy coverage and others will under buy. This criticism doesn't bother me in the slightest as optimal for the group is what I'm aiming for. A public health system will take tax from some people knowing it's likely to spend more than it gets and tax from others knowing it's likely to get more than it spends. A private insurance institution only does the latter, statistically everyone getting private health insurance is a loser, now obviously some people get really sick and therefore win, but assuming that they described their health accurately every single customer ought to be a loser. But you're not addressing my criticism, a private system can allow an individual to buy insufficient, or surplus in useless areas, coverage to actually meet his healthcare needs because he doesn't know what his needs are. How are you figuring that everyone ought to be a loser with private insurance? Private insurance can allow an individual to buy insufficient, or surplus in useless areas. I already addressed this by pointing out that public systems do exactly the same thing... which you dismiss as irrelevant because optimal for the group (or is it optimal for the average?) is what you're after. So is your criticism relevant or not? If it's relevant than you must apply the same criticism to public plans. If it's not, drop it. Let's use basic economy to figure this : with private insurance, the "level" of insurance will be optimally set, in theory, at the point where demand and offer meet. This solution is, under the assumption that the insurance market is perfect, optimal in pareto sense : this is the best solution possible. But, health is not a common good, as it has indirect effect on the society as a whole, what economists call externalities. Using the state as a mean of coordination instead of the market will replace market optimum with a a less optimal solution in term of pure market questions (ressource allocation, considering the hypothesis that the insurance market is perfect, which is a ridiculous assumption) but at the same time it will give the state the opportunity to take into consideration the positive externalities of having a good health on the society. It is not a question of individuals, some will not be assured enough sure, in theory it is even less optimal than market allocation but overall the society is supposed to gain a lot because the social security controlled by the state is not searching for individual optimality, but rather a global goal. The two situations are completly different, the goals and the results are too : in one situation, the goal is the optimality of ressource allocation, in the other the goal is having the best health possible and maximizing its effect on the society. It's a good idea to take economic language to understands the role of the government and the role of the market : the two are both means for the coordination of the action of agents, but their goals are different as the market will always maximize the utility and/or profit (depending on the situation). The discussion has nothing to do with the outcome of a free market in insurance vs a public system. Kwark has the position that buying insurance is a pipe dream because people won't buy the optimal (whatever that is) amount of insurance for themselves. I don't think that's true, and a counter point to that is that public systems are not optimal to the individual either. As for externalities, that's partially what regulators are for. They can (and do) mandate what can go into an insurance plan. Government systems can also work in parallel to insurance schemes. Again, I'm not advocating a pure free market in insurance here, just that insurance isn't a thing that's impossible to use well. He was basically saying he preferred collective goal rather than individual goal, and you force him everytime to argue whether the government plan is optimal for individuals. He is saying that the market goals (the research of profit, which is the goal of private business) are not sufficent enough when we talk about health and again you tell him that private insurance are not less efficient (which is completly true in term of ressource allocation). You are talking about ressource allocation when he is talking about health as a public good, that's why I used this exemple. Personally I'd be for government social security for completly different arguments. Kwark implied optimal as in optimal to the individual, but has also said optimal to the group. I'm fine with either, but I'm not going to allow a double standard in the discussion. The clever people at NICE know what the biggest statistical threats to an individuals health are and how much money they have allocated for looking after each person. This means that the care you get will be for the stuff you are actually likely to need. This can work in direct ways in terms of checkups or in more general ways by actively encouraging my demographic to check for testicular cancer to catch it early because shit that is specific to your statistical health situation gets costed and if it proves cost effective, gets done. This is optimal in terms of treatment. The private system asks you what coverage you think you need and will guess your likely costs based upon that and sell you insurance but it is not so likely to be optimal in terms of treatment because you don't know what you need. You keep jumping back and forth from optimal treatment to optimal treatment per $ for a given individual. I am saying that the public healthcare system does a better job of meeting the healthcare needs of an individual than the private one. It also spends money much more optimally across the group. However as with any system where people pay into it according to their means and withdraw from it according to their need some people are always going to be winners and some losers. The private one will more closely match your coverage to your premiums (well, not in America because your healthcare costs like 3x what ours does but in theory if a working private system actually existed then it would) but not your coverage to your needs.
Kwark, when's the last time you bought health insurance? Insurance comes in plan form, approved by the regulator and, in the US, often by your employer. There's a limited amount of decision making on the individual's part. It is not a matter of an individual needing to know everything they need. You're pretty much just figuring out what you can afford.
Insurance companies, employers and government agencies all encourage proper preventative care. You don't need NICE to do that. Alternatively, you could have NICE in the US with an insurance based system. You don't need the NHS to have NICE.
What definition of optimal are you using? I think you may be putting too much of a burden on insurance here. Insurance isn't an entire healthcare system, just part of it. Insurance is optimal or not in terms of level of coverage and the cost associated with it. You can look at that nationally or individually. Something like optimal treatment (what medicine to use when and where, if that's what you mean) is beyond the scope of insurance.
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Public and private insurance aren't mutually exclusive. Here in Germany for example you always have the option to get public insurance, and if you earn enough or meet certain other criteria, like being a college student, you can get private insurance. I'm a college student(privately insured) and i pay about 150 bucks a month and my insurance covers everything fully, except dental stuff , where i need to cover 1/3 of the cost myself.
When I'll take my first job I'll simply get kicked out and get publicly insured, and if I meet the income threshold I'd have the option of getting privately insured again.
Only limitation is that you can't switch back to public insurance after you reach a certain age(only in special cases) to stop people from abusing the system.
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Senator Elizabeth Warren joins others in push for more aid for Massachusetts fishermen
BOSTON (AP) â U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is joining other Massachusetts elected officials in pressing for more relief for the state's fishing industry, which she said has been harmed by catch limits imposed by the federal government.
"It's not a disaster because the fishermen did anything wrong it's a disaster because they followed exactly what the government asked them to do," Warren said.
Warren also said she's not comfortable with the science that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has relied on to set catch limits.
Warren made her comments following a hearing at the Statehouse on Monday. She was joined by fellow U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, other elected officials and industry representatives.
New England fishermen say the industry faces collapse because of the limits, which reduce the cod catch to just a fraction of its historical totals.
The catch reductions that went into effect May 1 include a 78 percent year-to-year reduction in quota on cod in the Gulf of Maine and 55 percent on yellowtail flounder in the Gulf of Maine and Cape Cod.
Last week the federal Small Business Administration announced it would provide disaster loans to fishermen and Warren said she's hopeful the aid can survive budget negotiations in Washington.
In September, Gov. Deval Patrick officially certified that Massachusetts fishermen who chase bottom-dwelling groundfish had suffered "substantial economic injury."
The Statehouse session comes as Congress weighs the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the law that regulates fishing in the United States.
U.S. Sen. Begich, an Alaska Democrat and chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard also attended the session.
Link
Attagirl, protect that industry form the govment 
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On November 05 2013 08:16 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +Senator Elizabeth Warren joins others in push for more aid for Massachusetts fishermen
BOSTON (AP) â U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is joining other Massachusetts elected officials in pressing for more relief for the state's fishing industry, which she said has been harmed by catch limits imposed by the federal government.
"It's not a disaster because the fishermen did anything wrong it's a disaster because they followed exactly what the government asked them to do," Warren said.
Warren also said she's not comfortable with the science that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has relied on to set catch limits.
Warren made her comments following a hearing at the Statehouse on Monday. She was joined by fellow U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, other elected officials and industry representatives.
New England fishermen say the industry faces collapse because of the limits, which reduce the cod catch to just a fraction of its historical totals.
The catch reductions that went into effect May 1 include a 78 percent year-to-year reduction in quota on cod in the Gulf of Maine and 55 percent on yellowtail flounder in the Gulf of Maine and Cape Cod.
Last week the federal Small Business Administration announced it would provide disaster loans to fishermen and Warren said she's hopeful the aid can survive budget negotiations in Washington.
In September, Gov. Deval Patrick officially certified that Massachusetts fishermen who chase bottom-dwelling groundfish had suffered "substantial economic injury."
The Statehouse session comes as Congress weighs the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the law that regulates fishing in the United States.
U.S. Sen. Begich, an Alaska Democrat and chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard also attended the session. LinkAttagirl, protect that industry form the govment
Aside from the obvious pork angle (lol if you though Warren would be immune from this) it really does make sense to compensate people for loss of livelihood from environmental regulations.
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Norway28674 Posts
actually government, please protect the industry from itself.
I mean, I'm not qualified to actually judge whether the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's science is good or not, but certainly catch limits are incredibly important to avoid overfishing.. ESPECIALLY regarding bottom-dwelling groundfish.
in terms of the principle government vs market discussion, the one single area where market just absolutely doesn't cut it because hardly anyone cares about producing profit that lasts beyond their own lifespan, is environmental protection. exception could be if somehow everyone were educated and cared about the environment and preserving the planet's condition more than they cared about themselves, but that's so far fetched I'm not even describing a parallell universe.
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And with that, Warren has lost a lot of my respect. Increasing catch limits doesn't solve the underlying issue which is that the fish simply aren't there anymore. People were catching several magnitudes more fish 150 years ago in wooden boats, increasing catch limits just makes the problem worse. Ideally we would stop fishing for cod completely until the populations rebound, but who knows how long that will take.
Yeah, MA has a long history of cod fishing, yeah I love eating cod but times change.. sometimes industries fail. I'd rather have the cod stocks rebound than have cod on my plate and have it collapse to insignificant levels.
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On November 05 2013 08:35 HunterX11 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2013 08:16 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Senator Elizabeth Warren joins others in push for more aid for Massachusetts fishermen
BOSTON (AP) â U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is joining other Massachusetts elected officials in pressing for more relief for the state's fishing industry, which she said has been harmed by catch limits imposed by the federal government.
"It's not a disaster because the fishermen did anything wrong it's a disaster because they followed exactly what the government asked them to do," Warren said.
Warren also said she's not comfortable with the science that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has relied on to set catch limits.
Warren made her comments following a hearing at the Statehouse on Monday. She was joined by fellow U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, other elected officials and industry representatives.
New England fishermen say the industry faces collapse because of the limits, which reduce the cod catch to just a fraction of its historical totals.
The catch reductions that went into effect May 1 include a 78 percent year-to-year reduction in quota on cod in the Gulf of Maine and 55 percent on yellowtail flounder in the Gulf of Maine and Cape Cod.
Last week the federal Small Business Administration announced it would provide disaster loans to fishermen and Warren said she's hopeful the aid can survive budget negotiations in Washington.
In September, Gov. Deval Patrick officially certified that Massachusetts fishermen who chase bottom-dwelling groundfish had suffered "substantial economic injury."
The Statehouse session comes as Congress weighs the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the law that regulates fishing in the United States.
U.S. Sen. Begich, an Alaska Democrat and chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard also attended the session. LinkAttagirl, protect that industry form the govment Aside from the obvious pork angle (lol if you though Warren would be immune from this) it really does make sense to compensate people for loss of livelihood from environmental regulations.
I'm not sure if environmental regulations normally do / should come with compensation.
Aside from that, SBA disaster loans seem like an odd mechanism for the compensation.
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Doesn't Australia have a fairly successful fishing regulation plan? I seem to recall someone having one; where it's not about catch limits per se; but about giving out rights to existing people in such a way that its' in their best economic interest to fish less and let the stocks grow.
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Is she actually pushing for the fishing limits to be raised, or is she just pushing for compensation for the fishermen? Because overfishing is serious stuff.
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Norway28674 Posts
well, according to that I guess she stated that she wanted more relief to fishermen, which I guess is only the former. but then there was the "Warren also said she's not comfortable with the science that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has relied on to set catch limits." statement, which, while I'm not familiar with this particular piece of science, still represents one of the more/most annoying aspects of current day politics - politicians cherrypicking science and refusing to adhere to science that conflicts with their political stance.
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current day politics? I'm pretty sure that's a time-honored tradition.
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Properly done, strict regulation of fishing can easily lead to a much more profitable fishing industry. I remember Alaska changing how they did the crab fishing a while back and it turned out better for everyone. No restrictions tends to lead to everyone for themselves and just catching everything you can. A quota would hurt for a few years, but once the population increases, everyone should be better off than they were before.
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On November 05 2013 09:34 Liquid`Drone wrote:
well, according to that I guess she stated that she wanted more relief to fishermen, which I guess is only the former. but then there was the "Warren also said she's not comfortable with the science that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has relied on to set catch limits." statement, which, while I'm not familiar with this particular piece of science, still represents one of the more/most annoying aspects of current day politics - politicians cherrypicking science and refusing to adhere to science that conflicts with their political stance.
I agree (and with DoubleReed below you, that it's not something new... just look at Galileo and Spinoza).
Look here, there's a group of people who have studied for 8 years (assuming 5 years to an MSc. and another 3 for PhD.), and are now dedicating their life to figuring out marine ecosystems. Their work is peer reviewed by other, supposedly independent, marine biologists.
However, that science disagrees with what my constituents want to hear, so it must be wrong.
Note: I am not saying the science is right in this case; I am completely unfamiliar with it, but the wording in the news article makes it sound like a vague accusation, rather than a thorough, grounded (evidence based), reason to doubt the scientific merit of the NOAA's study. It is blatant pandering and casting doubt with cheap rhetoric.
As to the other part: if catch limits are putting fishermen out of their livelihood, something needs to be done, but there are plenty of policies that make catch limits profitable, although I've seen them more linked to small-scale community fisheries rather than massive industrial fishermen. On the other hand, I don't feel too sorry that some industrial fisheries are going out of business: there are simply too many of them catching too many fish.
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EPT
